Prayer

I love praying.
I mean. I'm not very good at it, but I love just being able to talk to Jesus and have that closeness. If you know me then you know I'm a major fan of the God walk, on which I will walk around my local area and just tell God all about how I'm feeling and basically, I talk to him like I would anyone of you. I mean, what's really cool is that God wants to know all those smalls things about our lives, 'cause he loves us that much. For some people, I know it's all useful to put your hands together and close your eyes and go 'into' that place, but for me to connect with God personally, I find it much easier to just talk?! And then the powerful stuff kinda just comes out when it needs to.

BUT.
I have a question. Well, I have lots of questions about God, which tbh- I'm probably never gonna get answers to, God's cool like that by being too amazing for us to comprehend. But yes, I have a specific one about prayer, and so I was gonna write out my thoughts and if you're reading this and have a faith like me then I would love your input!   

I have been taught to pray a certain way my whole life.
Being brought up in a Christian home I was taught every night before I went to sleep to pray my 'thank you's, sorry's and pleases.' It would go something like this-
'Thank you Lord Jesus for going to school, thank you Lord Jesus for having a nice time, I'm sorry for all the things that I've done wrong when I'm not supposed to. Please help the people who are poorly to get better. Amen.'
And then in Primary school we were taught the Lord's Prayer. So I know that off by heart (although sometimes get a little confused 'cause they've made it more modern so we don't use words like 'trespasses')
But yeah, I'm getting a little off point but I'll get there I promise!
And the when you grow up you get taught to pray with authority, to pray every day consistently and with faith, all those prayers in ACTS and whatnot.

But recently I've been thinking about it, and a dilemma has come up.

I used to have a band saying PUSH. Pray until something happens. So when God doesn't answer you the first time, you are to keep on praying until he does something.

But. The question is:

If God answers our every prayer, why do we have to pray for the same thing more than once?
I mean, don't we believe that God answers our first prayer?! So if we prayer more than once it's like saying- well, I didn't like your answer the first time so I'm gonna keep on praying until you change your mind. If God is the same yesterday today and forever why would he change his mind simply because we ask more than once? Is it more like, him knowing that it really matters to us when we pray over it more than once? But doesn't he already know our heart to know it from the first time? 

In a book I read a while ago- 'redeeming love' which btw- is an awesome book and every one should read it. But yeah, one of the characters would place her worries into a box and give that problem to God, she wouldn't worry about it anymore and just  leave it to him. So that was essentially only one prayer. Is that how we should be, faithful enough in God's judgement that we don't need to ask more than once? Or do we pray more than once for a particular reason I don't know about 'cause not gonna lie, I don't know any way near as much about the Bible as I should do considering the fact I do biblical studies. 

Your input would be lovely on this one!

"To pray in Jesus' name means to pray in his spirit, in his compassion, in his love, in his outrage, in his concern. In other words, it means to pray a prayer that Jesus himself might pray."
Kenneth L. Wilson

We're going through changes.

The Golden Ruler

Okay. This is gonna be a simple post. H0pefully. Or at least just some thoughts on a simple verse that most people know.

I mean, the golden rule huh?! 'Love your neighbour as yourself.' ♥

It couldn't get any simpler than that. You know, do onto your neighbour as you would have them done to you. Even people who don't read the bible use this as a general principle of life. It makes sense ya'no?!

But the question I want to ask is- 'who do you love more, your neighbour or yourself?'
To be honest; I find it a lot easier to love other people than I do myself. When I think about mistakes- when I see people making mistakes I just think that, oh- they're only human, I love them, and you just move on ya'no?! But when I think about myself, I don't forgive myself for the simpliest things. For example, I went to the co-op on sunday and left my debit card at the till only to get it back today after hours of searching for it. And walking up there, I left like the biggest idiot in the world. I just wanted to cry and felt SO stupid. If anyone else had done that, I probably would've said it was a silly thing to do, but I wouldn't give them any grief compared to that which I get myself. And I hate myself for the smallest of things I wouldn't think twice about other people doing.
So yeah. I was thinking about it, and it's quite true that actually, I need to love my neighbour in the same way I love myself. So why do I not love myself?

I know people say that you can only really love other people if you love yourself, but I actually find it a lot easier to love other people. I'm not really sure how that works but what can you do?

So my question, do you love your neighbour more or less than you love yourself? ♥
Think about it.

Apologies..

So yeah. I kinda suck at updating this don't I?

Tbh, I have a ton of quite reasonable excuses but I won't bore you with them!

BUT. Good news folks! I have a TON of new ideas for posts which keep coming to me at the most annoying time (ie when I'm trying to sleep) and so haven't had time to articulate them yet. But they shall be coming ASAP. (like the next post- which hopefully will be up by the end of the day! If I can get the words out properly- you know what I'm like. A bit of a fail sometimes.)

But yes. I have one VERY important thing to say before I go.

God is SO GOOD! Just. wow. Yeah. He's amazing. I love him. You should too.